week six recap

May 12, 2012 / Matt Baldwin / 0 Comments

Week VI of my 8 week training cycle was… weird. It was finals week, my last week of the term, starting with exams, continuing with grading, and ending with graduation. As a college professor, my life is naturally broken into cycles, and, I need to learn to build my training schedule around them, because, as I saw this week, these kinds of transition periods really hammer my routine and my resolution.

Body Recomposition: My average weight bumped up by two pounds (to 198 lbs) as I ate off plan, abandoned IF, and drank more than I should. And slept less. My waist also balooned (to an average of 36.5″, up by 1/4″). Skinfold remained unchanged (at 8mm). So I was bloated and inflamed, obviously, and not recovering well. I saw a high point of 200 lbs during the week and had only two days at the low, 196. Saturday morning I woke up with a resolution in mind to fast and get myself back on track, which I proceeded to do. So, at least the week ended with my wresting control back from the capricious “id” that had taken control of my behavior.

Training: I’m still nursing that injured back. This makes three full weeks of disrupted training. Not that I didn’t do nothing… as the blog attests. This week actually had an extra training day in it — I completed a swim workout on Tuesday! First in a long time. That was fun. Swimming on Tuesdays will be a regular feature of my week going forward in the weeks ahead. I also had a very active Thursday (doing work around the house and yard); so active, in fact, that my strained back flared up mightily by the evening and was still sore on Friday. I had done some good conditioning during the week, and felt ok about everything, but by Friday I was spent and drained and… that was it. My workout didn’t go far beyond what I call “warm-up” and my “rehab” work.

Starting to look forward to finishing out this current cycle and shifting gears in the next, especially since this particular eight week stretch really didn’t go as planned, what with an “injury” stopping me from heavy lifting during its second half. I have some good thoughts about where I’m going next, though, so, yeah.

What is “Baldwin’s Gym Notebook”?

I'm a middle aged college professor who, over the past six years, has been on a journey—a sort of Odyssey, really—of fitness and training. In this blog I share my thoughts and experiences along the way, in an effort to hold myself accountable, and possibly, to inform and entertain readers.

This blog used to be called "Training Board". Posts relating to these topics can be found on here going back to 2009.

I took about two years away from the blog, from March 2013 until March 2015. In that "dark period," a lot of things changed. But one thing that hasn't changed is my desire to live and to live well, and to include fitness, nutrition, and thoughtful reflection on training in my life.

Thank you for reading. If you feel like it, leave a comment. Let me know your thoughts too. Let me know how your training and life is going.